Wednesday 14th Nov

A short drive from the hostel to visit Cape Foulwind and Tauranga Bay where we saw the largest Seal Colony in New zealand. We walked along the bay and saw the few seals from the distance. It took us a good hour to get to the other side where the Kiwi Ex Coach was waiting for us. It was also a pit stop for snacks.

We moved onto the coast where we checked out the Punakaiki Pancake Rocks and blowholes. It was also a lunch stop but we already had our lunch on the coach so we decided to go for a walk to visit the Pancake Rocks/Blowholes. The Pancake rocks are a series of stratified limestone stacks which, over many thousands of years, have been eroded to give the effect of giant piles of neatly stacked pancakes. Another feature we saw were the blowholes that at high tide or in heavy weather, throw up columns of dazzling spray.

While we were waiting to board on the coach, we decided to pop into the gift shop where we did buy something for us to remember of New Zealand. We won't mention what it is till we return from our travels for you to find out!

Leaving Punakaiki, our next stop was Greymouth to do food shopping as well getting money out as the next hostel don't accept cards, cash only. Unfortunately after we did shopping and leaving Greymouth, we noticed our group have been doing shopping as they were going to do fancy dress at the hostel on that evening. We weren't aware about it and it was too late for us. We were annoyed that we weren't aware about it, but however Daniel wasn't feeling very well so we didn't attend to the fancy dress party.

Once we arrived to Lake Mahinapua, we stayed at the hostel where we got to meet Les Lisle and the locals. We had a best meal that was provided by them. It was a steak with everything, it was so very filling and we were grateful to eat pototoes/vegs again!!

A quick few drinks and a couple of games at the pool before the party, everyone went and got ready so we made the most of playing pool games before returning back to our room to watch a couple of dvds. Daniel got worse so it was probably a good thing that we didn't attend to the fancy dress party.